To Darin Erstad yesterday … I asked him how his ankle was feeling and he said better and better. "When I heard and felt it pop, I thought that was it," Darin related. "But it is just a high ankle sprain, so I’ll be all right."

Why I Love This Job

You know when you are having a bad day, week, month, season, year, (etc) there are those moments that bring a smile to your face and remind you why you love your job. I had one of those today from about 2:30 until 4 pm. Midway through it dawned on me … blog it.

So here it goes …

I was in Ozzie’s office with he and Joey around 2:30 pm. Major League Baseball has an announcement tomorrow about Ozzie and a very neat program, and I needed to run it past Ozzie. He was showering, shaving and getting ready for batting practice as we talked. He read the release and quote from Commissioner Selig and laughed. "This is good," he said. (You’ll need to read it on our site around noon tomorrow, but the release will be typical Ozzie, the side some people rarely see or recognize).

Everyone headed outside for special batting practice. The sun was shining … for a time … and I sat on the dugout bench (you know where Ozzie sits during games) with Rick Hahn, our assistant GM, and Ken Williams. Those two had just gotten done with pre-draft (it’s Thursday) meetings.

Scotty Pods was taking BP as Ozzie threw. Oney and Ozney Guillen also took turns in the cage. Pods is very close, read that as verrrry close, to starting a rehab stint at Class AAA. He needs to be able to play the outfield down there since Brian Anderson is currently a DH due to a sore arm.

Our coaches were out fielding and Don Cooper was running laps with a walkman on as balls dropped around him.

The Food Network logo was on the scoreboard (aside: they are filming an episode of Dinner Impossible here tonight. The star, Robert Irvine, a culinary master and Royal Marine, doesn’t know it yet but he is going to be brought to the ballpark, joined by sous chef Ron Kittle and will be charged with cooking a gourmet meal for 150 out of our center field concession stand. You know we have the best food in baseball, tonight it will be gourmet quality).

Anyway, then a couple of amateur players took turns in the cage as Ozzie continued to throw. One hit a couple of balls out to left.

"You’re on the clock," Williams yelled to Bossard. "You haven’t been right very often this year," he chided.

"Yeah, how about this," Guillen said. "The GM calls the groundskeeper up this morning and says we want to use the field. The groundskeeper tells him 8:30 in the morning. The GM! Who owns this field? We need to ask the groundskeeper when we can play?"

"Hey, I need to take care of my field," Bossard countered to Guillen. "I water four times a day. One bad hop and you’d be all over me."

Meanwhile, AJ ventured out into our dugout.

"Who are these guys?" he asked about the amateurs.

"New catchers," came the answer.

"Hey," Williams yelled at his catcher, the old one, AJ. "What’s with trying to hit all the home runs? When we got you, I said you could win a batting title here … hit .300, 12 home runs. Now, all of a sudden you are hitting .260 with 20 home runs. Hit some singles to left and you might just win a batting title."

"What’s that on your finger?" AJ responded. "Remember, we got that because I swung real hard and missed."

And he walked away.

At that point our pitching staff wandered out to take batting practice.

Kenny took a couple of phone calls from other GMs while we were sitting there.

"Careful," I said, as media people walked past.

"What am I going to say?" KW fired back at me with a smile. "If someone asks me if I’ve talked about a player, I’ll just say … is it a good player? Because if it is, then I’ve talked about him."

Then it turned colder and dark and looked like rain.

I remind myself I do this for a living.

Draft Day

Is Thursday afternoon at 1 pm CT. We are going to have a camera in our draft room that ESPN can come to when it’s time for our pick. Too bad there won’t be any audio, just video of the conference room.

"We are going to have to hide the snacks," someone wisecracked.

Good News

I think, at least for Maria Wegener it is. Our Sunday game against the Cubs was not picked up by ESPN and will be played at 1:05 pm. The game will be a Sox telecast on Comcast Sports Net Chicago and of course, WSCR.

I think we all benefit from that contest being a day game, especially Chicago’s Monday morning work production.

Hey, Maria, you’re famous! Although, I wish it was picked up by ESPN, then I could’ve watched it in Florida, on vacation. Bad timing, I’ve missed the series more than once being down south. Cool stories, Scott. I love Roger and also Herm. The Sox have the best auxilliary crew around. I’ve always said my dream job was to work for Roger on the turf crew. When my boys and I play “pick to click”, you get a negative 2 if Herm has to come out to check on your player.

While you are correct that we could/should beat these guys, it is unfair to say they are not decent pitchers. Obviously as these stats show they are beating alot more teams than just the White Sox, especially Gaudin. Also, Clippard is a top prospect and his early success is not that surprising.

its not a good thing that espn didnt pick up the sox vs cubs…that means that these 2 teams stink and there are better match ups for a national game. i wish we could have a friday night cubs sox game….those were always fun. the sox better have a good june or its time to do some trading come july. the teams we are playing are cupcakes. time to make a move.

Hey Scott, thank you for a really fun post! Wish the game had been as much fun.

And I’m bummed that ESPN didn’t pick up the Sox-Cubs game, because now I won’t get to watch it.

Mark, if Chad Gaudin isn’t a household name yet, it’s because he pitches for a smaller-market team, not because he isn’t a good pitcher. Watch out for Danny Haren, too. The A’s bring up some good pitchers in their system, they just don’t pay to keep them (think Hudson, Zito).

You make a good point, Mr. Liptak, but you’re a tad obsessive about it. Gaudin has owned several lineups this season. Paul Byrd didn’t just show up from the minors. He’s won 88 games in his career, and there are a lot of pitchers in this league being paid a lot more than him who have worse stats than he does. The Sox aren’t hitting anybody this year, and frankly, it’s a little puzzling that so many of them are still struggling this deep into the season. The starting pitching’s been decent enough, but when your creeping into the 5th, 6th, and 7th innings with only a couple runs on the board every night, you’re just asking for trouble. If these hitters can all slump at once, they can all get hot at once, too. Let’s hope for a major resurgence from the offense, especially in the second half, and see how this thing shakes out. The division title might not be realistic, but I believe the wild card is still attainable.

Some are missing the bigger picture with the comments about the pitchers the Sox have lost to this season.

To wit, the fact that the Sox have been having major issues with (take your pick) ‘no-names, has-been’s, junkballer’s, left handers, guys with bloated ERA’s SINCE 2004!!!!!

OK?

I still remember Bill Melton on Comcast Sports after the Sox lost to a rookie pitcher in Texas commenting on how this is the same thing we’ve seen before….and this was a few years ago (pre 2005 championship)

The point I’m making (again) is that this is a seriously flawed team of station to station ‘all or nothing’ home run sluggers who are PRONE to scoring a bunch of runs one day then going into the hole for the next two or three days.

This hasn’t started this season, it’s gone on for awhile.

Only in 2005 when the team actually showed some balance, the ability to run, take extra bases, move runners along…did they have real success.

Question for all the ‘experts’…if it worked in 2005, why in the **** wasn’t it used before that season and why have these guys ‘suddenly’ forgotten how to do it now?

With respect, sorry folks, the names of the guys I mentioned have ZERO track record in the big leagues with the exception of Byrd who is coming off two seriours arm injuries.

It’s inexcusable to lose to that mediocrity as often as Sox hitters have over the past five seasons at least.

The fact is, and has been since about 2003 that we stink against guys we don’t have history against. If we have not had at-bats against a pitcher he usually aces us. There are some junkball pitchers like Paul Byrd who just seem to have our number, but the biggest problems is guys like Tyler Clippard.

From some of the comments KW made yesterday it sounds as if the Josh Fields era may begin soon. I love Crede, but other than the second half of 2005 and most of last year he has underperformed. It could be the back problems, but he sure looks like the old Joe Crede at the plate so far this year. Back problems don’t go away. I hate to say it, but it may be time for a change soon.

So, this blog site is two years old now, eh, Mr Reifert?…Well,add my congratulations on to those of the lovely Ms Wagener…and just think…if you make it to next year, you’ll be eligible to run for the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes…
What’s that?…Oh, I’m sorry…that last stipulation is only for horses…which some on this site think the WS DON’T have to compete…

Well, there are a ton of other franchises in MLB who can answer to that as well…The Sox aren’t the lone(non-Texas)rangers there…

True…a bunch of other teams have bad seasons every year, that’s the law of averages.

BUT…

I don’t care about the Rangers or Royals or Cubs or Pirates or Devil Rays or any of the other garbage clubs….I care about the White Sox…period.

Just because other teams are lousy doesn’t make me feel any better when the Sox are.

And with much regret I must tell you that without a bullpen, some team speed and a club that can’t seem to hit better then .235, barring a miracle of Biblical proportions, the 2007 White Sox are dead as a turkey on Thanksgiving Day.

Try to get a winning season, have a major retooling next year (with productive veterans as opposed to ‘can’t miss kids’ who can’t seem to hit or throw strikes)and hope for better things in 2008.

On a better note, congrats to Ozzie for stepping up with Scott and creating the anti-steroids video. It’s an obvious problem in our game, and it sure can’t hurt Ozzie’s image and repuation by stepping forward and offering his services to MLB.

I believe, one way or another, 2007 is going to prove to be a real pivotal year for the Sox. So we’ve gotta start facing reality here.

I don’t know what the **** is the problem with our core of players and frankly it doesn’t really matter. You saw glimpses during the second half of last season and have gotten a whole eyeful this one. Sure, this team could be good but it isn’t.

It’s become flawed product. And if anything it’s trending downward.

With the AL Central the way it is, the front office needs to do some serious soul searching.

Deanklubs Indians are going to be good for a long time. With Hafner, Sizemore, Martinez and Sabathia they’ve got a good, young nucleus.

Detroit’s stacked offensively. They mix in some veterans with some players in their prime. Players like Guillen. Then they got good, young pitchers coming up.

The Twins are like Rasputin.

This division is going to be good for a long while and it behooves the Sox to adapt to the changes going on. We are an old team. I hope Kenny flips some of these veterans for some solid young players. He messed up big trading away Chris Young and because of that we have a vacancy in CF that Anderson, Sweeney and Owens haven’t been able to fill. This Josh Fields experiment should be an interesting one because he could become one of those cornerstone players you can build a young nucleus around.

Kenny’s got some decisions to make. I hope he doesn’t make some lopsided trade in an attempt to salvage this season because that would be a mistake. The Sox can certainly get back in this but so what? What next year? I don’t know about you guys but I certainly don’t want to see this same or a similar lineup next year or for years to come.

We need to shake this team up. We need to start thinking about building for the future.

Ok, that’s it for me. No more viewing this site. Thanks to Mark Liptak and the like.

None of us are happy about this team, but we shouldn’t have to see your trash every day. We all saw it the night before and reliving it the next day on this blog is unnecessary. Thanks for ruining a good thing for me Mark. Enjoy bashing the Sox for the rest of the season. Seems to make you feel good.

2005 is the culprit in all of this. Got that taste, thought we were close to doing it again, kept all the big pieces, added pieces that were thought to help even more. Then, BOOM! That was the sound of the bottom falling out, amidst all the optimism that is now turning out to be unfounded. It’s hard to take, by everybody. Williams has a big job on his hands, to right the ship. But, this team isn’t that old, it’s just not as good as we thought it was. Once upon a time everything fell into place, but it is evidenced now that the Sox had not put together a plan that would last.

Just read Ozzie’s comments concerning steriod use. I don’t believe Latin players are unfairly targeted. The “facts” are that in 2005 half the players suspended were Latin players. They have targeted themselves. Then Ozzie stated that it is not his business if others take steriods. He only takes a stand with his family. That is the type of attitude that has prevailed so long in Major League Baseball and needs to be eradicated. So sad Ozzie, I used to respect you. Wished you would have stood up and took a stand. Seems there are a lot of followers but no leaders.

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